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Fighting is Magic
My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic was an upcoming fan-made fighting game inspired by the animated television series My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. However, its development was permanently terminated after Hasbro issued a cease-and-desist order against the developers, stating they were infringing on their trademarks. Though the game will no longer be developed with the My Little Pony characters, the Mane6 team will reuse the core gameplay elements they had devised, with new non-copyrighted characters to be provided by artist Lauren Faust, the original creative lead on the Friendship is Magic series. Development The game originally began when a Mane6 team member, Anukan made mock-up screens under the title of "Marevel vs Clopcom" and posted them to a Ponychan board discussing fighting ponies. When another, Nappy, saw those images, he became determined to make them a reality, and in summer of 2011, the team, which at the time, consisted not only of Nappy and Anukan, but also of Jay Wright, Lucas Ellinghaus, James Workman, and Prominence, met on Skype for the first time. The game uses the Fighter Maker game engine. The team has released early pre-alpha gameplay footage that displays basic game mechanics such as launches, juggles and hyper combos as seen in existing fighting game franchises such as Marvel vs. Capcom and Guilty Gear. So far, they have only released footage showing how Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy and Applejack play. The last main character, Rainbow Dash, is still under development. Though an unlicensed work from Hasbro, the holders of the My Little Pony franchise intellectual property, the Mane 6 team had not received any cease and desist notices from the company as of October 12, 2011. Like much of the rest of the Internet phenomenon surrounding Friendship is Magic, Hasbro has allowed episodes of the show along with parodies and mash-ups of the works to be redistributed freely across the Internet, helping to create a participator culture that has drawn a broader audience to the show. On January 30, 2012, Prominence left the development team for personal reasons. A test build was leaked by a member of the Quality Assurance team on August 2, 2012. As a result, Mane6 announced it was cancelling all plans of external testing and suspending video updates about the game's features for the foreseeable future. However, they released a clarification and FAQ the next day, saying that they overreacted some, and that while they were still replacing their entire QA team (to ensure no further leaks), they don't hate the fans for downloading and playing the leak. Also, they stated that the Canterlot Gardens con "is still go". Maxwell McGee, of GameSpot, featured this game as "The Most Unlikely Fighter You've Never Heard Of", mentioning about the game's information and revealing a picture of Pinkie Pie fighting Rainbow Dash, along with some other non in-game pictures. He also included an in-depth look at the designing of the game, and working with the 2D Fighter Maker 2002 engine. On February 8, 2013, the team announced that they had received a cease-and-desist order from Hasbro, and while they are trying to contact Hasbro to negotiate, they will follow the directives of the C&D letter, and suspend production indefinitely. They also announced the resignation of James Workman (aka Elosande) from the development team as of February 6, 2013. There is currently a petition to convince Hasbro to let Mane6 continue development on Fighting is Magic. Mane6 were unable to come to agreements with Hasbro and have since started to redo the game using new artwork assets. Faust has offered to provide original character designs for Mane6 for any future endeavors,24 and her official involvement with the project was announced at the end of February. The cease and desist is believed to be a result of the visibility of the project through the EVO 2013 tournament. Gameplay Fighting is Magic is a traditional one-on-one fighter that takes place in a 2-Dimensional plane. The gameplay borrows the dial-a-combo system made popular by renowned fighters such as Capcom's Versus crossover series. Standard fighting game fare is incorporated in the game, from character lifebars to a 'super' gauge to a round timer to special and super attacks. Characters engage in a 'best-of' battle, where one must fully deplete the other's lifebar or have more health remaining once the timer reaches zero for a set number of rounds. The character who wins the most number of rounds is declared the winner of the match. Controls The button scheme is a four-button layout: light, medium, heavy, and magic. The latter button is an original mechanic that differs with each character, and originally began as a work-around for difficulties with inputting two different attack types at the same time. The system is like the Drive system from BlazBlue. Trivia * An image that was used by Hasbro's My Little Pony Facebook page during August 12-13, 2013 includes a piece of Golden Oak Library background art that was previously used for the game. Gallery Category:Game Category:Unofficial Category:Twilight Sparkle Category:Applejack Category:Fluttershy Category:Pinkie Pie Category:Rainbow Dash Category:Rarity Category:Fan Game Category:Fighting games Category:Cancelled Projects